I smile up at him. “Good night. And thank you for a lovely evening.”
“The pleasure was mine.”
I force myself to say good night and leave him there. As I reach the gate and meet Dave, I turn to see Xander leaning against the doorframe, watching me as I prepare to leave with Dave. I wave, and Xander waves back, and giddiness fills me.
Dave and I walk in silence as he takes me to the palace gate, and I’m wrapped up in a million dizzying thoughts. Before I know it, I’m inside a black cab, and I’m heading back towards Sloane Square.
As London whizzes by in a blur of lights and cars, my head does the same.
All with thoughts of Xander Wales.
Chapter Eight
Smiley Faces
I turn off my alarm on my phone before it’s due to go off. I’m so tired. Even my eyelids feel exhausted as I study the screen on my phone.
It’s almost four-thirty.
I think I slept for a whole two hours, as I spent most of the night trying to convince myself that I was with Xander. That it wasn’t the most realistic dream I’ve ever had in my life. That somehow, some way, all of that actually happened.
I swipe open the Connectivity app for a reality check, as I did several times last night when I couldn’t sleep. Sure enough, my latest Connectivity Connect is one Kevin Smith of London.
With potato smiley faces as his profile pic.
I stare at the picture, thinking this is so different than the man I thought I knew from the media. The future king of the UK has a profile pic with fun-shaped, smiley-faced, crispy mashed potatoes on it. Of course, that led to a text messaging conversation about why he picked that picture.
And the story behind it made my heart melt.
Xander explained that his father once asked his nanny what children Xander’s age liked to eat. She told him smiley faces and spaghetti hoops were popular. So he instructed the chef at Buckingham Palace to add them to the order and serve those for lunch on Fridays in the nursery. When Arthur was able, he would come to the nursery and share the same lunch with Xander and Christian, telling the boys this was their special lunch together. Xander said he has had a fondness for both things ever since, but only the squad knew that story—and now me.
I still can’t sort out why he trusts me so much. Perhaps it’s the same for him. I should be questioning everything about his motives based on what I’ve read—and seen. But my heart tells me I’m seeing the real man that Xander is. Who he has, in recent months, grown to be.
And if my past were to be available for him to read online, would he trust me? Believe my interest in him?
I sit up and stretch. That’s an interesting thought. If I had the paparazzi following me up until yesterday, what would they say? I think of the stories and pictures that would come out about me:
Poppy Davies is asexual and doesn’t like men—see her roll her eyes at them at the pub.
The two sexual escapades before she became a nun! Poppy tells friends, “I don’t see what all the excitement is about.”
All she does is work! See Poppy Davies ice biscuits!
“I prefer biscuits to sex,” Poppy Davies says.
I do not want to rely on a man for anything EVER, biscuit artist says.
I smile wryly. There’s a mixture of truth and exaggeration in the headlines I have written for myself. Yes, I’ve had sex. Exactly twice. Once to lose my virginity and get on with it, the other time to see if it could be better than the awful first time.
I sigh. Sadly, the answer to that question is no.
Isla assures me sex can be, in her words, “bloody fantastic!” when you are with the right partner, but I’m not convinced. My partners were both lovely guys, and I assumed the sex would be lovely, too.
Oh, I was so wrong about that. It was awkward. Gross. And I sure as hell didn’t orgasm. I’ve read about that in magazines, and nothing even close to that happened to me.
I flip back the covers and swing my legs over the side of my bed. Both Jake and George were cute, nice boys. I know they had no problem reaching orgasm. Yet they never asked